


A Legend and a Ghost

by worstcommander



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Freeform, Post-Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-03 23:38:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worstcommander/pseuds/worstcommander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Does a ghost have a heartbeat? He tastes it, to be sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Legend and a Ghost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mrsalenko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsalenko/gifts).



The Reapers are dead.

He'd imagined this differently. He had a lot of time. Six months. He never let himself believe she didn't die. It was almost a certainty.

In her cabin she was alive. That was his compromise. Past the threshold was the truth of things, Alenko the stoic captain steering them through the stars. Steel like the nameplate he'd pressed to the wall.

But in there, she _was_. An echo, a ghost, a scent on the pillow. His hand was hers, his grip her mouth. The path of his fingers the drag of her skin.

He was a good captain, she would have been proud. He'd brought them home, ragged and hungry but alive. He salutes Hackett, sharpness and angles. He's become the steel of her.

So when she parts the crowd at the ceremony, he doesn't accept it. They had a deal. She stays in the cabin, in the home of love and sighs. Her sharp edges cut his fingers as he put her where she belonged. She's blurring the lines, ruining the compromise he fought so hard for.

Her ghost leads him into a hovercar, shuts the door behind him. The sun is warm on the window which he rests his cheek. He'd always wanted to see her in the summer.

They'd dreamed a life together. He'd coaxed them out of her, these dreams. A place to hold her life, a safe place for the memories. This place is none of those. Bare and anonymous, at odds with the spirit who brings him here. They sit on the couch, the memory and the man.

She clears her throat, a rough cough in the silence. Do ghosts cough? His hand is on her ribs as they expand and contract. He watches her skin pulse in the hollow of her neck. Does a ghost have a heartbeat? He tastes it, to be sure.

The world slows and speeds at once. His hands shake as he unfastens familiar clasps, neck and shoulder and waist. The world spins dizzily and he hears the crack of wood, dimly recognizes the reorientation of his world as she fades into being.

Every second of eternity converges. She's alive and real and above him, sinking down. He grips her hips as she begins to move, trying to anchor himself in reality. He buries his face in her chest, chasing the drumming of her heartbeat. She's bowed above him, chanting a litany of nonsense words. Whispering profanity and love and disbelief.

The coffee table is ruined. That and the couch were her only two pieces of furniture but she isn't even mad. She couldn't be. He can't kiss the grin off her lips, no matter how hard he tries.


End file.
